Hive World Trianda Five, Remigius Sector
Manufactorum 'Lilienthal'
Pale tiles, chipped and smeared, covered mould-flecked walls. Layer upon layer of faded spray paint obscured the sky-blue shade. Shards piled in the corners. Rusted, iron supports groaned with the old construct's movement.
Sharp slaps echoed through the empty rooms. A slight figure in yellow left dark prints behind him on the floor, clay-coloured beneath the dust. Cords swung from the man's hooded anorak. Thin clouds shot from his bright red nostrils. Belting through a nest of turbines, the man seized the edges of a sliding door and heaved it along its rails and slipped through the narrowing gap before it clanged shut.
A wheeled staircase climbed up to gantries criss-crossing the manufactorum's ground floor eighty feet below. Exhaling through his teeth, the man climbed up to the gantry, bent his knees and thrust his feet at the stairs. Dirt-clogged, sticky wheels carried them a few feet away from the edge. Warm palms seized the cold railing and pulled the aching body along. Mesh wobbled and vibrated beneath his light shoes. At the far end of the main chamber, the man slid through the bars and swung down to the roof of an overseer's office. Thick dust flew in to the air. The man jammed the crook of his arm in his nose and, peering over the lip, hopped down to the walkway leading inside the office. His elbow cracked a curving bracket for a fire extinguisher. He squeezed his eyes shut and listened.
Through the barren office and out of the administration area the man crept. Desks remained in empty cubicles. Chairs lay on their sides. Holes peppered a threadbare carpet. Dirty glass fragments crackled beneath the man's soles. He tugged his sleeve over his hand and eased it through a hole in a glass door, bent his arm upwards, and hooked his fingers around a handle. Shards snapped off the frame and tinkled to the floor.
Iron steps rung beneath the man's shoes. A circular shaft led down in to a tunnel with rails running along it. Sharp-pronged hooks curved from the mossy brick walls. Torn cabling dangled from brackets hammered in to the brick. Exposed wires glinted. Deep shadows reared in arched alcoves all along the tunnel. Moving at little more than a shuffle, the man reached a domed chamber and a turntable. Thick bars formed a mesh cage beneath the rails. Water dripped from a skylight far above his head. He eased his hood back and closed his eyes. A gentle thumping filled his ears.
Cold metal touched the man's cheek. Blood curdled in his ears. Staccato thuds drowned out the whimpers rushing from his throat. A knifepoint slid up his cheek to his eyelid. "Ah, ah, ah, ah—" The man's chest trembled. A boot cracked the back of his knee. "AGH!" Iron slammed in to his kneecaps. "I never killed them!" His fingers clawed at the rotting boards beneath the rails. "I never killed—AGH!" The boot came down on his spine. "No!" Hands seized his ankles and dragged him back in to the tunnel. "NO-NO-NO-NO-NO!" Brackets popped from the tunnel ceiling. Loose cable dangled.
"Say it, Felix." Black leather gloves jerked the man upright by his collar and thrust his anorak over a wall hook high enough to leave him standing on tiptoes. "Say it." Cable wound around the man's neck.
"I never ki—grrgh!" The knot tightened around Felix's neck. Teeth set, Felix tilted his head back. "I never killed anyone."
Before him stood a man in a long, dark jacket. A woollen watch cap half covered a pair of pale blue eyes and a thick brown beard exploded along his jawline. Broad nostrils flared and lips were parted over uneven, yellow teeth. "Never killed anyone, Felix?" A short, sharpened blade wandered up to Felix's eye and pattered the lid. "Never has so much truth and so little remorse been conveyed with so little dignity," the man growled. "You will be without dignity for the rest of your pathetic excuse of an existence which I fully intend to prolong." The knifepoint withdrew. Two piercing specks faded back in to the shadows.
Toes reddened and aching, Felix tottered. His hands wrenched at the cables held by the intact brackets above his head and jiggled them. High-pitched rasps hissed from his running nose. "…Please."
Sharp clangs rang through the tunnels. Felix's sore fingers dug in to the cable tied around his neck. Metal rang against metal. Felix twisted his shoulders and kicked off from the wall. A nail wiggled free above his head and fell in a gap between the rails. Blood pounded in his head. The hook holding his anorak tore through the material.
A claw-headed hammer scraped along the rails, rose and thudded in to the tunnel. Red chips flew from the walls. Felix jerked his head away from the banging hammer. A tear leaked from his eyelids. Fat nail-heads stuck out of the man's fist. He held a point over the tunnel wall opposite Felix, laid the hammer's flat head over the nail and struck. Four other nails driven in in a row followed the first. A wide-framed industrial lamp slammed on the floor. White light bathed the tunnel. A hand seized the back of Felix's head.
"You now suffer the same indignity you put upon them. Remember Elleesha, Felix?" A finger aimed at picts of young children nailed to the wall. "She was seven. Toby, six. Maggy, eight. Rone, nine. And little James. Four years old." Fingers dug in to Felix's nape. "They will never get any older. Trapped in those crates, five by two, crying, pleading, wondering why the lights went out."
"I ne—I never killed anyone."
The lamp died. "Lights out, Felix."
Shrieks ripped through the manufactorum's upper floors. Blood ran down Felix's trousers. Hands wrenched him from the hook and propelled him along the tracks. Bent double, Felix swayed side to side, his hands clutching his bleeding groin. "Ohh…" His knees slammed in to the turntable and he tipped sideways. "You cut my…"
"I gave a little nick—" The man jerked a locking bar from a hatch beneath the rails and hauled it open. "You'll want to clamp it between your legs, stop the blood, quench the flow." Gloved hands seized Felix's shoulders and rolled him over to the hatch. "Think about tonight." The five picts fluttered through the hatch. "Keep these."
"Uhh, please…" Felix raised a shaking, bloody hand. "Semar—"
The man came down on one knee. His hand closed around the edge of the hatch. "When the blood builds up, you will feel the pain that you gave them."
"No!"
"Forever." The hatch walloped shut. Dust cascaded over Felix.
"Please!" Felix lunged at the holes in the mesh ceiling. Three shining fingers scraped at the man's feet. "SEMAREK!"
Iron-shod soles clomped away. Felix's limp fingers slid back through the mesh and he collapsed on his side in the darkness. The five picts surrounded him.
Lights streaked past fogged-up windows. Brown glass vibrated in its housing. Wheels rattled and squeaked. Semarek, head down, arms tucked in to his chest, rested his chin on his breast. The strip-lighting in the carriage flickered. Air seeped through cracks in the glass.
"Laughton Station." The train's whine receded. Lights formed outside the windows. "Carry the Emperor with you."
Carriage doors hissed open. Semarek tugged a respirator over his face and tightened the straps. He lifted his numb backside from the hard, plastic seat and crossed the gap to the station platform. Green bulbs cast faint light through the haze covering Laughton's litter-strewn platform. Yellowing posters and fragments of old newspapers obscured the waiting room's arched windows. Underneath the platform, homeless hivers squatted beneath tarpaulins standing on stilts, slept inside cardboard boxes, and clustered in flea-ridden blankets. A chipped arrow, screwed in to the bare brick wall, pointed Semarek through the hivers and up a flight of stairs to street level.
Raindrops seeped through awnings jutting out of habs built atop one another. Rickety walkways bridged yawning chasms disappearing down in to green fog. Light spilled from cracks in boarded-up windows dotting the habs. Many leaned against one another, sagging under years of neglect. Gigantic pipes wormed through them, twisting their way in a lazy ascent to the moisture-clouded ceiling many hundreds of feet above, unseen on most days. Shack walls, ridden with rot, bulged. Great puddles formed beneath overflowing gutters. The stench of raw sewage filtered up through floor grates.
Under an unlit neon sign, Semarek pounded his fist on a thick plasteel door. Rainwater cascaded in to a wide grate on either side of the door, joining a roaring flow continuing on a path parallel to the winding street. A slat in the plasteel whisked back. Two eyes glared at Semarek. "Is it done?" Semarek's chin dipped. The slat sliced across.
Hollerman's. Bright bulbs attached to cables surrounded the sign leaping from the tavern's upper floor. Boards creaked beneath Semarek's boots on the way inside. Empty wooden tables filled the tavern's ground floor. A giant, stone chimney above a firepit dominated the centre of the room. Behind the bar, facing the chimney, an M36 Kantrael lasgun sat on a wooden plaque. Steel clacked upon the tiles and the bartender Autrice limped around the corner. A prosthetic arm hung at his side and rivets ran down from behind his ear and along his jaw. His white hair was buzzed short on the sides and longer on the crown. Violet eyes drifted over Semarek to the taps.
"Working late tonight." Autrice picked an unopened bottle from a locker and set it and a tumbler on the bar. Semarek dug a leatherbound notebook from his pocket and laid it beside the tumbler along with twenty-eight Imperial Thrones. His hand slid over to the bottle and took hold of the neck. "All yours." Autrice swiped the money in to his palm and tipped it in to a pouch on his apron and disappeared behind the bar.
Alone, Semarek flicked through the scribbles in his notebook and puffed on his pipe. The bottle grew lighter, and the embers in the fire pit dimmed. Semarek's pen scratched at the paper. His right hand, shaking a little, patted at the empty bottle.
"I'm off for the night." Autrice undid a knot holding an apron around his waist and lifted it over his head. "Lock up when you're done." Semarek lifted his tumbler, swirled the remainder around, and tipped it back. Once Autrice had left through the back door, Semarek squeezed through the hatch and brought a second bottle out on to the bar. His teeth sunk in to the cork jammed in the neck and ripped it out. Pale brown liquid tinkled in the tumbler. In the deadly clutches of… Semarek whisked a line through the passage. Too many syllables. In the fell clutch of circumstance perhaps?
The tavern's front door dinged open. Soles dragged across the mat. A lock clicked shut. Three smears appeared in the glass cabinets opposite Semarek, all facing him. "We're reading poetry tonight, lads." Semarek slid a glass ashtray along the bar and tipped ash from his pipe.
"Felix Ghosh, we found him up in that old factory. Someone had damn-near cut his cock off, someone by the name of Semarek."
"How the blood flowed…" Semarek's eyes remained on his notebook. "Even the tiniest cut can squirt so eagerly."
"He'll never get it up again as long as he lives!"
"And how I hope he will live out his days in agony. I cut him on account of him being a despicable, unpleasant, child-grooming predator."
"Yeah? Well, we plan on being unpleasant to you. Felix was our friend."
"Then you'd best look again at the man you call friend." Semarek laid his pen down and swivelled around on his stool. "And take a look at yourselves." He puffed on his pipe.
Spiralling tattoos fell inside collars and trailed up sleeves. Lank hair, swept over shaven crowns, stuck to grimy cheeks. All three – sallow-skinned hivers – stood in a loose semi-circle around Semarek. The centremost hiver, shaven-headed, held his right hand in a pocket on his overalls. A tiny patch of hair, triangle-shaped, pointed down at his crooked nose.
"Should you wish to draw, aim, and fire before I am upon you, you'd best draw your gun." Semarek brought a leg up, crossed it, and wrapped his hands around his knee. Smoke rolled from his mouth.
"You offworld fuck." Thin mucus flecks leaped from beneath Triangle's brown teeth. An eighteen-inch-long baton slid from his pocket. "How about we do to you what you did to Felix?" The rounded end rose and wavered at Semarek. Triangle's friends rolled their wrists and cracked their knuckles.
Semarek's head jutted forwards. Lips peeled back from his teeth. "Then draw your sword."
"Hrgh!" Grins flitted between the two hivers flanking Triangle. "Hrgh-hrgh."
Steel thudded on the bar. The hivers' grins vanished. Semarek's hand covered a Volg .38 hammerless pistol. Triangle's baton fell to his side. His friends shot glances at him. Semarek leaned over the bar and set his Volg beneath the Kantrael's plaque. "Since you have elected to stand there…" Semarek brought the ashtray closer and tipped his pipe's contents inside. "It falls to me to act." He flipped his notebook open. "In the fell clutch of circumstance—"
Triangle lunged. Semarek swiped the ashtray and blew. "AGH—!" The baton clattered on the floor. Semarek seized his book and backhanded Triangle's neck. Triangle collapsed. His shoulder cracked against the stone.
"Fuck!" Triangle's friends dove at Semarek. Semarek rammed the book in to a hiver's mouth. Teeth sunk in to the leather cover. Semarek's palm pummelled the spine. Bone popped. Propelled backwards, the hiver's head smacked the stone chimney. His eyes glazed over and he slid down to lie before the dying embers. Chair legs scraped. Semarek whirled and scooped up the fallen baton. The third hiver, arm outstretched, lay with his belly on top of the bar pawing at the Volg. Fingers sinking in to the hiver's waistband, Semarek wrenched him off the bar and sent him crashing in to chairs.
"No, please—!" Semarek booted the hiver's gut and walloped his skull. Each subsequent blow delivered a solid thunk to the hiver's limp body.
"Ha-ha-ha." Semarek tossed the baton away and picked up the notebook, now covered in teeth marks. "In the fell clutch of circumstance…" He crossed behind the bar and deposited money where his Volg lay. "…I have not winced nor cried aloud…" The cool steel slipped inside his jacket pocket. "…Under the bludgeonings of chance…" The fresh bottle in his hand, Semarek stepped around the limp bodies and headed for the door. "…My head is bloody, but unbowed."
Long in to the slow hours, Semarek trudged the streets of the underhive. Half-naked servitors hauled dustcarts along by chains looped around their torsos. Speakers, bolted to broadcasting towers, blared out praise to the God-Emperor and reeled off manufactorum production numbers. One hand gripping his bottle, Semarek shambled up rickety stairs and along spindly catwalks clinging to jumbled shacks. Moisture coated everything. On a walkway overlooking eight massive, circular reservoirs, Semarek thrust an iron key at a lock embedded in a wooden shack door. The key bounced off the brass plate. Mucus gurgling in his throat, Semarek jiggled the key in and twisted.
Damp clung to the walls of a single room, twelve feet by six. Faded posters hung above a small, rusted stove on one side of the shack. On the other wall, a corkboard held picts of persons, missing or murdered. Open case files piled atop a leaning chest of drawers. Stuffing sprouted from a sagging armchair. Semarek tossed his jacket over the back of it and hauled his grey sweater off and, barefoot, climbed a wooden ladder up to a tiny loft with just enough room for a sleeping mat and a pillow. He lay on his side, bit the bottle's cork, and spat it out. The final few dregs buzzed down Semarek's throat. Empty, the bottle lay beside him on the edge of the loft. Semarek slipped a hand inside his undershirt and ran it up to the old scars. The four-inch plate inside his chest ached.
Far beneath the shack, a gentle tremor grew to a violent rumble. Dust fell from the ceiling. Cobwebs swung down and tickled Semarek's ears. Vibrations shook the empty bottle over the edge of the loft. Glass exploded across the floor. Semarek's head dropped to the pillow. He clamped his eyes shut and laid his forearm over them.
Eldar Migrant Fleet, The Webway
Steel jangled inside steel. Buried beneath a thin sheet in his bunk, little Uy twitched.
"UP-UP-UP-UP-UP!" Metal on metal rang through the sleeping berth. "Up, children, up!"
Grit clinging to his eyelashes, Uy dragged the sheet off and swayed upright. Above, beneath, and around him children sat up in their bunks. Bare feet clambered down the sides then slapped upon the cold floor. Lines formed. Behind and in front of Uy stood children taller than him wearing baggy human clothing with the legs and sleeves rolled up many times. A smudged nametag rode Uy's breast: J. Currach.
Feet pattered the floor. Uy scratched at the greasy curls plastered to his scalp and forehead. Yawns flitted up and down lines of other children funnelled alongside Uy's line. Shoulder met shoulder on the way through the sleeping berth's bulkhead door. In the grey corridor outside, adults broke the different nationalities back in to separate lines and led them off one at a time. Uy's group, the pale-skinned, darkhaired orphans of Ulthwé, trooped off last to decontamination and the showers.
Bubbly grey liquid rose to the rim of the shallow bowl before Uy. His spoon sliced through the thin soup and brought up a yellow lump. A tuber? Uy brought the spoon to his lips and sucked on the lump. My tuber. Around him, the Ulthwé group hunched over their bowls, spoons dripping, little legs kicking, some not even reaching the floor. Any more? Uy's spoon dived in to the shallow bowl, scraped the metal, and came up dripping. Oh… His head tipped in to his hand. I have Gothic to look forward to today. Uy's lips twitched. Madam Lethidia.
Later on in the ship's morning cycle, Uy and the other Ulthwé children filed through a bulkhead door and in to a room filled with pipes and humming machinery. Foke-sill. What does it mean? Uy took a seat in front of a small folding table and l set his pencil and cork board down. This is the front of the ship, I think. Stern, or was it bow? Quickly, the four rows of eight tables filled. Grins and giggles buzzed through the waiting children. Uy's neck warmed.
"Good morning, children." A female voice, low with a slightly husky tone to it, addressed the children in Gothic.
"Good morning, Madam Lethidia," the children chorused back in Gothic. Uy held his breath.
"I hope you are all well." Paper shuffled. "Today, we will be looking at homophones. Can any of you tell me what a homophone is?"
Paper swished. Ears reddening, Uy looked down at his cork board as a slender hand laid a sheet of lined paper on his desk. Uy's eyes flicked over to Madam Lethidia's hand. Rounded stumps ended halfway along her right thumb and forefinger. Gothic words that sound the same but are inscribed with different runes.
"Yes, very well done, Uy," Madam Lethidia said. Uy's head jerked upright. His hand clapped over his mouth. I spoke aloud! A few titters rippled through the class.
"Settle down, now." Madam Lethidia handed out the rest of the paper and glided to the front of the class. "Quite correct." She perched upon the curve of a pipe and folded her hands. Notes balanced on one knee. Golden eyes roved around the children. "Though the Gothic language uses an alphabet of twenty-six letters, as you are very much aware, I will not drag you through recital this morning. Let us instead turn our attention to homophones." Madam Lethidia's eyes passed over Uy's. Uy's dropped to his blank sheet. "Begin with inscribing on your page the following letters…"
Curving lines formed on Uy's page. Strange, ugly letters. A girl, Isa, sitting on the other side of the class raised her hand and spoke in the mother tongue. "Madam Lethidia, may you convey once more the runes required to spell the word?"
"Ah!" Madam Lethidia held her palms out in front of her chest. "In Gothic, please."
"…I cannot spell the word."
"Let me see." Madam Lethidia went over to Isa's table. "Mm-hm, you are correct, Isa. Children, can any of you give me an example of a homophone?" Uy gnawed at the metallic end of his pencil. "An example of a homophone." Madam Lethidia linked her fingers and glided through the tables. "Anyone." She wet her thumb and separated three sheets of paper and tacked them side by side on an overhead pipe. A single Gothic word had been written on each of them. "Observe here. Though they are written differently, these words are all pronounced identically." A hand shot up. "Yes, Shadra?"
"What does identi—identically mean, Madam Lethidia?"
"It means it is the same." Madam Lethidia brought her hands up to her breast. "They're, there, their. These Gothic words are spelled differently, yet they all sound identical." Another hand rose. "Avila?"
"Why do we learn the human tongue?"
"Learning influences understanding. If we understand the human, we know they are not to be feared or to be hated." Madam Lethidia paused. Her gaze swept around the room. "Now, let us turn our attention to our first homophone."
Break-up and the afternoon cycle approached. Uy counted down the minutes in his head. The ugly, squiggly Gothic letters packed in in neat rows on his page. Around him, his fellow Ulthwé orphans began packing up and getting down from their seats and heading off to the noonday meal.
"Uy?" Madam Lethidia picked the three sheets from the pipe and slipped them in to a leather satchel. "Just a moment, please."
Uy's chair legs scraped. His feet touched the floor. Clutching his corkboard, Uy shuffled up to Madam Lethidia. Warmth flowed up his back. A tightness overtook his throat. "M—M—M—Madam Lethidia?"
"There is great courage in speaking up when no-one else will." Madam Lethidia turned to face Uy. A slightly broad-shouldered woman, she wore a grey, one-piece pressure suit with the hems hanging over a pair of reddish-brown boots. "And even greater in looking your tutor in the eye." Dim eyes in a smooth, oblong-shaped face looked down on him. Brown hair, scraped back across her crown, was held in a tight bun. Both ears had slightly softer points to them than usual. "To act on impulse tells of an inner boldness, a quality oft lacking in beings." Uy's lower lip trembled. "You must raise your hand, just as everyone else does, before you deliver your answer, Uy. Where you are, you travel as a pack, and the pack is at their strongest when it acts as one. Lone wolves are left to fend for themselves, and you are not a wolf. You must eat, laugh, and learn together, as one. Say it after me; as one."
"As one."
"Go to your friends, now. Walk, don't run. Let them see the smile on your face and the familiarity in your eyes."
"Mmm…"
Madam Lethidia clapped her hands twice. Uy flinched, spun, hugged his warm corkboard to his chest. Great thuds shook the corkboard on leaving the foke-sill, and all the way up to the human mess hall where Uy's friends waited. A bounce captured Uy's step and a smile stretched across his smarting face.
Away from the fo'c'sle, the being known to the children as Madam Lethidia wandered amidships through the iron grey corridors, up narrow companionways and along to the officers' quarters where the children's parents, their teachers, and their learning supervisors bunked. Within a junior officer's cabin, a scant seven feet across and eight feet high, two foldout bunks hung next to one another from taut chains. Between them stood a narrow washbasin and, above it, a chipped mirror kept in place by a single rusty screw. Lethidia's nose wrinkled at the black hairs clinging to the basin's sides. Galea, please clean the basin after you are done. Lethidia unzipped her olive-grey pressure suit and tied it around her waist and blew a hair from the rim. Wild hairs sprouted over her ears and hung down her pale forehead. Gods, sunlight. Lethidia screwed up her face and arched her aching back. Warmth on my skin. White scars stretched. Deep pink rimmed her eyelids. Thin crinkles appeared in the corners of her eyes.
Sprawled on her bunk, Lethidia drove a fork inside an open can marked 'Scrag' and bore the last few scraps of bright pink meat in to her mouth. The prongs clattered against the rutted sides and jangled when Lethidia leaned over the side of her bunk and slid the can past her weights and over to where the four-pack of Imperial Navy ration tins sat in their cardboard pallet. A tiny scrap clung to the thick hair hanging down her shoulders. Lethidia picked it clean and flicked it in to the sink. She got down on her knees and dragged a set of weights out. Her knuckles scraped a rough surface behind them. Dust clung to the tattered spine of a book bound in cracked, brown leather. Little gold letters spelled the words Calixor Hereditus Grome and the Seven-headed Serpent of Asokumar. Lethidia left her weights on the floor and curled up on her bunk with the book. Dry fingers sifted through the yellowing pages, straightening folded corners and smoothing creases out. At the very end of the book, a folded-up scrap of old parchment slipped out and fell in Lethidia's lap. Four lines – a stanza – covered the scrap. Lethidia's eyes followed the stanza from beginning to end. I hope you will like this.
Thick netting, bulging in places, held firm over pens in the ship's cargo bay. Winches dangled from drooping crane arms. A fat generator feeding energy to the cold storage containers hummed. Alone, Lethidia sat down on empty boxes organised in loose rows before an eight-foot-wide section of Wraithbone – starship armour-plating – peppered with holes, leaning against the foot of a loading crane. Flowers, folded robes, boots, breastplates, helmets and toys piled at the foot of the Wraithbone. Holo-picts, hovering at head-height, gave off a soft glow. A twinkle radiated from a Lirmani gemstone embedded in the pommel of a sword.
Lethidia unfolded the parchment and spread it across her knee. Our souls awoke and sought a path. But in the darkened light, which direction to take? Disturbed, she starts to think of what to do, but quickly realises I need you too. She rose and approached the memorial. "I need you too." Lethidia's fingers brushed a thin strip of Cameleoline. "Uncle." Her eyelids fluttered. Wrinkles deepened on her forehead. Her lips stretched. Lethidia collapsed to her knees and clapped her hand over her mouth, stifling her choking gasps. The Cameleoline, scrunched up in her hand, dampened.
Migrant Fleet Flagship Vermora
Two Days Later…
A frayed harness lashed Lethidia to a bucket seat. Flickering bulbs cast a dim, red glow in the Valkyrie's empty cargo bay. Lethidia curled the fingers on her right hand and turned her palm upwards. The dull roar outside softened. Thuds came from the landing skids. The rear hatch split and unfolded on to Vermora's deck. Lethidia parted the clasps on her harness and shrugged them off. She laid a hand over her bubbling heart and drew air in to her lungs, held for a moment then exhaled.
A gentle buzz emanated from the deep-purple Wraithbone deck the Valkyrie sat on. Dozens of other human ships – single-seat fighters, lighters, tugs and dropships sprawled in varying states of disrepair in Vermora's aft hangar bay. Ship superstructures hung in containment fields. Bonesingers crawled over the carcasses, stripping them of their hide.
Lethidia passed the Valkyrie's double cockpit and raised a hand at the pilots. One gave a three-fingered wave. Ahead, five Eldar blinked from an iris-shaped portal linking the hangar with the rest of the ship. Two pairs of former Void Dragon corsairs, all armed, flanked a bareheaded Eldar in a white robe; the captain's majordomo. A violet sash circled his neck and hung down his chest. Runes decorated the fabric.
"Y-lavai, Anhirath astherian." Lethidia moulded the Eye of Ulthwé with her left hand. "Iam koem-feon Ual-dearas a-ladanna."
"You speak as a child, Coldras," the majordomo replied in Gothic. "Lay your cave-tongue to rest. We converse as adults on this ship."
"Er—Greetings and respect to your captain and your company, Majordomo. I received your word and hastened here as quickly as my duties permitted. My compliments to his excellency, as well."
"You are as much of Ulthwé as we are of Commorragh, Coldras. Trawl our footsteps. Keep your distance." The majordomo spun and led his escorts across the hangar. Lethidia trailed them and passed through the portal in their wake.
Giant orbs containing Vermora's habitation, storage, and vital systems hung adjacent to one another within the ship's midsection. Eldar blinked in and out of the iris portals and skirted the transparent orbs on thin catwalks. The bolder among them leaped between them. So much has changed since this was the Gorynych. Lethidia traipsed down a spiralling ramp to a portal leading fore. Free of the tyrant. A circular ante-chamber with a depression in the centre separated the bridge from the rest of Vermora. Wraithbone sculptures of prowling dragons circled the old Void Dragon sigil, a pair of entwined dragons, mouths agape, roaring at one another on the floor.
"Wait here, please." The majordomo blinked up to the bridge. His guards arranged themselves around the ante-chamber, their long lasblasters held tightly to their chests. Lethidia clasped her hands at the small of her back and paced around the sculptures. Wondrously sung. She slid a hand along a dragon's flank. A tingle danced along her fingers. On her third circuit, she threw a look at the dormant portal. You asked me here, Captain, I made no intrusion. Lethidia's eyes wandered the gently-humming branches criss-crossing the chamber ceiling. Loose hairs tickled her neck.
Buttocks numb, head cocked, Lethidia sat with her back to a dragon's hindquarters. Folded arms rested on her chest. "Coldras, my apologies." A tall, blond Eldar in an Imperial Navy greatcoat blinked from the bridge portal. "I am sorry." A gloved hand thrust at Lethidia.
"My captain." Lethidia gripped Ulthyr's glove and swung to her feet. "…Agh!" Her hand flew to her back.
"Strife envelops the fleet, my dearest." Ulthyr's hands rose to Lethidia's shoulders. "That which was certain yesterday is now decidedly uncertain, this day."
"We are in good hands." Lethidia stood herself up on tiptoes and rubbed her cheek along Ulthyr's angled cheekbone. Her hands slid up the wool and the golden buttons on Ulthyr's breast.
"Your class…?" Ulthyr moved his head back from Lethidia's. "The Ulthwé orphans were to be shuttled aboard, were they not?"
"No. We agreed I am to bring them aboard next Orthun. Today is Sindra, and I do tutor children from other Craftworlds. Those with parents do not wish their offspring intermingle. You know this."
"Ah, I see." Ulthyr held a button on his coat between his thumb and forefinger and twisted it.
"Was there a message you wished to convey?" Lethidia scratched her elbow.
"Privately, yes. My guards will see you to my quarters." Ulthyr wagged a finger at the sentinels.
"I came aboard for you, Captain." Lethidia laid her hand on Ulthyr's arm. "Do not send me away under arms. You trust your team to helm Vermora free of your guidance, if only for an hour."
"You hold my thoughts, Coldras." Ulthyr gave Lethidia a quick smile then turned back to the portal. His guards formed a loose escort around Lethidia on the short journey back to the mid-section and during the ascent to the habitation chambers. If we cannot make time for one another… Lethidia entered a portal outside Ulthyr's private chamber. The transparent membrane around her turned a milky white before darkening to grey and then black. Orbs rushed together to form a centrepoint of illumination above two sitting mats separated by a low table. Coldras. Lethidia scooped up a disk-shaped projector from the table. Better a Ranger than a pirate, I suppose. She tossed the disk in to the air. "Play last recording."
Hours later, Ulthyr's servants bore bowls of Sarecco and Kale in to the chamber and arranged the table for the evening's meal. Ulthyr himself soon followed. "For your patience…" Ulthyr passed his greatcoat off to one of his servants. "I thank thee." Beneath it, Ulthyr wore a thin wrap with wide sleeves and a sash decorated with miniature dragons. He sat his jet-black boots beside Lethidia's red-brown lace-ups and slipped his white socks in to a pair of sandals.
"I would speak with familiarity." Lethidia manoeuvred her legs under her and rested her hands in her lap. "Will you permit such informality at this table, Captain?"
"All ears are silenced." Ulthyr's soles slapped the thin mats laid beneath the tables. His fingertips touched Lethidia's shoulders. "You may speak your birth name."
"My thanks, Ulthyr." She tilted her head back and met Ulthyr's pale eyes. Well, I am down here. Ulthyr instead moved around the table to sit opposite her. Lethidia's head sunk in to her hand. She picked up a sliced stick of bread and trawled it through her soup.
"Make permanent quarters up here, Izuru." Ulthyr's eyes rested on his folded hands. "With me."
"Hmph. Is that an order?" Izuru drove a fistful of hair upwards and swept it back over her crown. "I come to you, a tutor of the young, and I am isolated by contempt and escorted under arms through a vessel of familiarity."
"Let me tender an apology on behalf of the ship's company." Ulthyr laid a hand on his breast. "I will urge all to offer respect worthy of a veteran."
"Mm-mm." Izuru bit a fingernail. The soggy piece of bread bobbed on the surface. "You're asking me to uproot from my tutoring and make permanent residence aboard Vermora. Do we shuttle the children across too? Separate them from their brethren?"
"You yourself said the parents forbade any of the different Craftworlders mixing with one another. If the Ulthwé orphans were to—"
"No." Izuru shook her head. "I'm not talking about this anymore." She picked at the sodden bread. It slipped beneath the surface and disappeared in the soup.
"I am sorry you feel that way."
"Please stop apologising." Izuru seized a fistful of kale and bit.
"Your message?"
"Fragments."
"From what I understand, psychic phenomena threw the transmission around in the nether for over sixty cycles. It is spreading, out there in realspace."
"Yeah." Izuru Licked the salt from a crust and dipped it. "You watched it."
"I did not."
"Why ask me aboard then? How could you know the intended recipient?"
"Izuru, I respect your privacy."
"Your majordomo did it, didn't he?"
"I have no answer to that." Ulthyr dipped a long-handled ladle in his soup and sipped. "Make no aggressor of me, Coldras. I will not sit and be interrogated at my own supper."
Head lowered, Izuru drank her soup and mopped the bread through the remains. "I'm turning in."
"Goodnight." Ulthyr sprinkled pepper in his soup. "I might join you shortly."
Up in Ulthyr's solar, Izuru slipped a nightshirt over her head and flicked her hair outwards. Two cocoons hung beside one another within drapes. Gods, I hate these. Izuru dug her thumbs in to her waist and ground her fingers up and down her spine.
Swathed in her cocoon, Izuru lay motionless, eyes closed, her breathing even. Bare feet approached and clambered in to the adjacent cocoon, bumping Izuru's elbow. "Izuru?" Izuru remained silent. "Meld with me."
Warm water enveloped Izuru. A tingle rocketed along her toes, all the way up to the tips of her ears. The layers fell away, laying her consciousness naked. The foreign body slithered against hers, wracking her inner being with great, heaving shivers. Voices overlapped, whispering, moaning, hissing at her. "Nephalem."
Izuru's shoulders twitched. Thin strands of hair clung to sticky tracks running down her cheeks. Still wrapped up, Izuru drank in warm air filling her cocoon. Chest heaving, she dug her hand beneath her nightshirt and felt her dry loins.
Warm footprints trailed Izuru down from the solar. Shoulders sagging, she slumped on the mat before the table. "Play…" Izuru ran a damp palm through her scalp "Play last recording."
A hum reverberated through the chamber. The illumination bulbs dimmed. "Begin recording…" Fuzzy, crackling scraps flew together, forming a tall, slim Eldar in a black robe bereft adornment. Long, spindly fingers smoothed his receding hairline. "To my spirit-bound mate…"
Spirit-bound. Izuru's teeth sunk in to a knuckle. You know not the meaning, Ellorias.
"Izuru dearest…" Ellorias's hologram walked through the table. Deep rings circled his eyes and blemishes dotted his cheeks. "You are in good health?" Ellorias brought his hands to his breast and wrung them. "Your partner too, I hope. Long have we remained separate, long have I denied the plain, the obvious, that which was spelled out with such clarity, such blatantness—" Ellorias fizzled out. Static buzzed. "—I am the weak, the fearful living in terror of the retribution the children's mother might wreak upon the selfish, greedy vessel held within—"
You always talked for the whole room, didn't you. Izuru propped chin in her hand.
"—has been a great upheaval in the fleet. Not a being among us expected it—" Image and audio cut out entirely. "—left a chasm so deep, we—"
Ilic, Korsarro? Izuru chewed the nail on her little finger. Gods, Ellorias, tell me!
Ellorias reappeared trudging in a wide circle around the chamber. "I thought someday soon…" His eyes leaped in Izuru's direction. "Someday soon we would do something together, even if only to see this feud settled. Such a rift can only sow discontent in the children's mind. They believe that I do not love you any more, therefore I do not love them—"
You loved them as prospects for your business, not as people. Izuru scrunched up her nightshirt around her knee. Ellorias cut out again. His figure exploded in to fragments.
"—Of all our homes, I remember the villa in the mountains on Lirithion with the firmest clarity—"
"End transmission." Izuru hugged her arms to her chest. Her shaking teeth slid over each other. Mucus snorted in her nostrils. "Ilic." Her shoulders hunched. "Korsarro." Izuru doubled over. Her chin settled on her breast and she tipped sideways and curled up on the mat.
Trianda Five, The Underhive
+++PSU Login Confirmed+++
Semarek C. You have 1 new messages.
You have selected: READ.
Hey James, it's Peter. I hope you're doing well on Trianda and your job's keeping you above board. I just wanted to say I've been given an apprenticeship planetside – I'm gonna be working on an oceanic platform; one of those massive stations out in the middle of the ocean. I'll be two weeks in to my probationary period by the time this message reaches you. I feel like I have a purpose now—a real purpose. I'm still seeing Nat too. We're making time for one another. Everything's good. I hope you're good, too.
I guessed those monthly payments were coming from you—well, who else do I know out there? Haha! You don't have to keep on sending me money. Most of my outgoings are covered by the company. I do appreciate the gesture though. Really, I do. It would mean the universe to me if you might come and visit again. I'm sure Nat would like to meet you. Maybe we could arrange to meet sometime at UEC? That's not a huge leap from ARS. Take care now!
All the best,
Peter
You have selected: DELETE.
Smoke curled around the Public Service Unit's curving screen. I clamped my pipe between my teeth and hammered the backspace key. Worn plastic creaked beneath my backside. A loose screw rattled in the chair. Good for you, son. I logged off the machine and left the booth. Out in the tight alleys of Guildenstern, vents bled steam. Condensation gathered on pipes. Drops spattered on the mossy tiles. The reek of human waste seeped through my respirator. Sticky patches clung to my soles.
Bartek Seventy-One. I stepped through an open security gate and made the descent to a hab built –instead of upward – downward towards Trianda's core. At the base of the stairs, a square landing of bare stone surrounded a single lift with mesh walls. Inside, I tracked a finger down the fingerprint-stained panel to a piece of electrical tape covering the bottommost floor. Out of Order it said. I peeled the tape back and thumbed the sunken button. Iron bars screeched inwards and pulleys squeaked. I set the bulky bag I carried on the floor and watched the dial edging along the numerals near the ceiling until it passed the deepest sub-level. The lift carried on for another minute until coming to a halt before a blast door. I hooked my fingers through the bars and dragged the gate across. "It's me." I spoke in to an intercom beside a fogged-up panel. My palm slapped the hard alloy. The blast door rumbled upwards. Blue light blazed from a multi-screened cogitator setup in the corner of a bare-brick cellar filled with arches. "Morning." I dumped the bag on a dining table.
"Hey, Semarek." An overweight, shaven-headed man sprawled in a leather chair before the cogitators. Wire clusters protruded from his arms, head, neck, and spine. "Whatcha got for me?"
"Interest, Ockwyn." I set two packets of buns, a packet of biscuits and a jar of recaf beans on the table. "Any searches on my name, this week?"
"Nothing this week. Did you bring my…?"
"Varya…" I dug two pornographic magazines from the bottom of the bag, one of which featured a woman with a full-body tattoo, and the other a stocky, heavily pierced woman. "…And Armiro—recaf?"
"Oh, would ya?" Ockwyn stuck a thumb in the air.
Brown beans whizzed inside a grinder. Next to it, a plastic kettle hissed. Can't beat it. I inhaled above the freshly-ground beans. "Came straight from the God-Emperor, these beans. The Warp sent me that porn."
"Wha—why's that?"
I left the kettle and took the magazines over to Ockwyn. "Masturbation displeases the Emperor." I dumped both in his lap.
"Should've given me two legs then, not these." Ockwyn waggled his legs. Both ended in rounded stumps well before the knee. "When He coughs up, will be the day I offer thanks."
"You ought to pray occasionally." Fresh water, just past the boil, flowed in to the ground recaf. "Something good might happen."
"Like a fat-titted bird?"
"They're up there if you know where to look." Two mugs clinked beside the brewing recaf. "Anything you want. It's up there for a price."
"You've seen the surface, haven't you? The actual surface. The sun on your face. No rads, no UV eating you alive…"
"I have." Milk lightened the black liquid. "And I can only speak disparagingly about it."
"Hah! No, you're pulling my leg."
"Blue sky every day grows tiresome on the eyes." I bore the mugs down to Ockwyn's chair.
"Blue sky?" Ockwyn took his mug. "Blue?"
"Mm-hm, blue." I dragged a chair up and cradled my own mug. "Blue as the eyes I was born with."
"Mmm, lucky. Have you been drinking?"
"Yup." I dug a steel flask from my pocket and sloshed it. "Old Marsay."
"Whassat?"
"Rum, my friend." I flicked the cap off and tipped the rum down with the recaf.
Ockwyn swiped a capture of the galactic plain on to his eight screens. Great pink smudges cut through the galaxy. "See these violet anomalies? It's where the Immaterium is making contact with realspace."
"Orphanariums, Ock." I closed the flask's cap and tucked it away. "A lad named Kaukasios—K-a-u-k-a-s-i-o-s."
"Err, okaaay… It'll be the same as it was last week. I can't receive intact packets of information if they are on the other side of these anomalies. All I get is jumbled-up code."
"It's space—go above it, go beneath it."
"That's not how it works. These things actively draw matter—physical or otherwise—towards it and inflict all sorts of bloody hell on it. A person will come out a raving lunatic and a data packet unreadable scrap."
"How do you know that, are you a scientist?"
"I dunno, it's not like I maintain the widest cogitator array in the sector or anything."
"Thanks, Ock. You're a diamond. I'll bring the bickies over."
Ockwyn and I shared the packet while he ran sector searches on orphanariums. The Lad's probably fifteen, even sixteen now, making his own way in the galaxy. I steepled my fingers and laid my chin on them. Don't follow your father. Please, please do not follow your father.
"I'm sorry, Semarek." Ockwyn's hands lay in his lap. "Even without the anomalies, I just don't have the range to net every single orphanarium in the Imperium."
"Okay." I got up and slapped Ockwyn's shoulder. "Enjoy the sticky pages."
Bars rolled backwards. I stole a swig then fixed my respirator in place and trotted up to the security gate. My hand dived in to my coat pocket and took hold of my Volg and tilted it up at a two-wheeled cart on the street outside the hab. A naked, musclebound servitor held the bar attached to the cart. A head obscured by a respirator leaned around the canvas cover.
"What does he want now?" My hand left the Volg and slid out of my pocket. "I did what he asked."
"He'll be the one asking you, Corporal." Dio Harazi, a sergeant in the 22s, glared at me over the rim of his respirator. "Get in."
Bumped and jostled in the cart, I stared at the ragged muscles straining on the servitor's back. "How is Uncle Igal, anyway?"
"Nothing from Espiotis, this month," Dio said. "Ock?"
"He got a double-helping of Varya and Armiro, this morning. He's fine."
"The special interest sheets?"
"Yup."
Dio's eyes narrowed. A snort escaped his respirator. Carted through the rain-slashed alleys of Guildenstern, I held the flimsy cover over my head. At a foot-crossing over a narrow-gauge railway, Dio flicked an electro-prod outward and shoved it in the servitor's spine. The servitor straightened up and relaxed its hold on the bar. "Let's walk."
Across the narrow-gauge line, we left Guildenstern and entered the wider, steeper streets of Rubinek. Brick walls rose up one side of the uneven cobbles, and a sheer drop fell away on the other. Drops ran down soaked awnings splayed over tables packed by Rubinites taking in the midday meal served by a cantina. The only vacant table beside the counter was occupied by an older, bespectacled gentleman in a white navy sweater eating a broth filled with vegetables.
Dio raised a finger and left me standing out in the rain. I pinched my collar shut and fingered my Volg. Hope daddy's in a good mood today. Dio reached his father, laid a hand on his shoulder, and bent down and muttered in his ear. Dewan Harazi, head cocked, eyes on his broth, murmured back.
"Okay." Dio made his way back to me. "Your thirty-eight."
"Good mood, today?" I brought my Volg out and handed it grip-first to Dio.
"Yeah." Dio dropped the Volg in a deep pocket on his jerkin. "C'mon, don't keep him waiting." Hands in his pockets, Dio followed me underneath the awnings and leaned against an iron support. I swept my watch cap off and stuffed it in my jacket.
"Semirechye." A low, gravelly voice grated in my ears.
"Colonel." Harazi flicked a leathery hand at the bench opposite him.
"Thank you, sir." I tugged my respirator off and sat.
Harazi tapped his fist to his lips and cleared his throat loudly. "Some privacy, I think."
Benches creaked and grated. Every single one of the cantina's denizens rose and filtered out in to the rain. Bowls, empty and half-full, remained on the tables. Soon, only Dio and the cantina's staff remained.
"One for him, too." Harazi tipped a glass filled with bright green liquid back.
"Very good, Mister Harazi." The proprietor ducked in to the kitchen.
"Kale, turnip, onion, leek, lentils." Harazi pressed the tip of his thumb and forefinger together and thrust them at his broth. "Very good. Bring his me gun, boy." Harazi ran a napkin over his mouth.
Dio laid the Volg on the table. "It's loaded."
"Felix Ghosh." Harazi folded the napkin up. "You made him impotent, last night."
"I did."
A waiter brought out a glass filled with bright green liquid. "Mister Harazi. Sir."
"Give your people an hour off, Chaymus." Harazi slid my Volg off the table.
"Thank you, Mister Harazi." The waiter disappeared.
"Kind of you, Colonel." I drank the peppery vegetable blend. "Death would have been an escape. Felix Ghosh must live with the deeds he committed; in pain I might add."
"You made sure he knew why it was?"
"I left him with five very good reasons why. It'll send a message to the gangs in Upper Voysey."
"I don't care about the gangs, or Felix Ghosh." Harazi rose from the bench. I stood up and swung a leg over. "A new property has just arrived on the market." Dio bought an umbrella over. "Thank you, Dio." Harazi strode out in to the rain and unfurled the umbrella. "A viewing is in order."
Water trickled down through the cobbles and splashed in overflowing drains. Rain soaked in to my watch cap and drops inched down my nose. Dio and I, wet through, traipsed after Dewan Harazi, striding up Rubinek's avenues without pause.
"Property?"
"Ah-choo!" Dio dragged the back of his hand beneath his nose. "Bleurgh!" Rain surged down the black stubble covering his head.
Forty minutes later, Harazi turned off the main street and marched up Oshna Way. I ducked in to a wide porch and wrung my cap off. The shivering Dio waited out in the street a few paces behind. I held out my watch cap. He wrinkled his blue nose and shook his head.
"Ah! We are here." The dry Harazi approached a covered flight of wooden stairs climbing up the side of a hab, shook his umbrella off, and folded it. The pointed tip thudded on the steps on the way up. Dio's footsteps followed me up the stairs and along the landing to an open door bordered by two flowerpots. 1833 Oshna Way.
"Wipe!" Harazi barked at me. His shining umbrella balanced in a corner of the porch. I scraped my heels on a coarse mat and hung my hat on a line of hooks on the wall. Pale yellow paint covered the walls. A spiralling, iron staircase led to an upper floor. Leather-backed couches surrounded a well-trodden carpet covering the stone floor in the living area. An island jutted out from the worktop in the kitchen. Clay jars filled with ingredients lined shelves. Ash filled a square space beneath a fireplace.
I picked up a hand-carved lion stained red from the end of a bookshelf. "What's it going for?"
Harazi, sprawled in a chair at the head of a dining table, opened a case and drew a fat cigar. "Nothing." A lighter snicked open. "You have it."
"Colonel?" I left the lion and moved through to the dining area. Harazi raised a finger and tilted it downward. I took a chair and drew my pipe.
"One condition…" Harazi blew smoke. "I have a daughter at UEC—you know it?"
"Ursarker E. Creed Station, yessir I know it. Don't know your daughter."
"Remove your pipe before you talk, Corporal. My daughter ran off with a businessman, taking a considerate sum of money from my personal funds. I want her back safe with funds intact, or as much as you can recover. Either way, bring her back."
"Colonel. I'll leave as soon as I can." I tucked my pipe away and got up.
"Corporal." Harazi set my Volg on the table. The bore faced me. "If I catch you knowing my daughter…" Harazi's fingers curled around the black, stippled grips. The bore rose. I met Harazi's black eyes. Click. A smirk twisted Harazi's wrinkled face. He tossed the Volg at me then dumped its cartridges on the table. Brass rolled across the polished surface to the edge. I caught the eight in my palm and dumped them in my pocket. Dio passed me on the way out, giving a nod.
Smoke stunk the dining area out. Dewan tilted his head back. He tipped his cigar at the chair Semarek had left. Dio laid his hands on the back of it. "Do I have a sister?"
"My first marriage." Dewan grinned. "Seat yourself, boy."
"I don't like this." Dio sat. "Ghosh. We're treading his floors, sitting at his dinner table. One might think our man Semarek went too far." Dio clamped his fists together. "He killed him, didn't he? He killed Felix Ghosh, now you want him gone."
"The man's name was Zun Enlai—one of those moron inbreds Semirechye left at Hollerman's. His grandfather is Tadeusz Enlai, Lord High Judge of Sector Remigius. Disowned though he may be, he is still the grandson of an imperial judge. There can be no blood running in our streets because one of our thugs refused to pull his punches. Semirechye goes to UEC, you take your pick of our men and head there three days after he goes. See that he does not return."
"And my sister?"
"My first wife's daughter is nothing to us."
"Will you tell me her name, at least?"
"Her name is Calla." Harazi lunged at Dio's wrist. "Only the name Roanek matters. Not hers, not ours."
"He's one of us."
"Swear to your father, your colonel." Fuzzy brows edged inwards. Chapped lips trembled.
"Semarek is a corporal in the Two-Ones. Only with Uncle Igal's blessing—"
"Semirechye! Cyrano Semirechye. Remember that name." Dewan took his son's cheek in his hand. "Swear it."
"I swear it." Dio kissed his father's cheeks. "Father."
"Only Roanek."
Vermora, The Webway
Izuru? Ulthyr, nestled in his cocoon, ran his hand down the membrane. His fingers pressed in to the empty cocoon adjacent to his. Another night-time stroll. Ulthyr divested himself of the layers holding him and climbed down to the floor. His palm hovered over a spherical receptacle. The surface dilated, peeled away, and shelves opened up. What do you take again…? Sleeping tablets or was it the anti-depressants? Ulthyr plucked two slim vials bearing lozenges and carried them, along with a silk sheet down from the solar.
Izuru lay on her side, curled up on the mat at the dining table. "My lady." Ulthyr draped the sheet over Izuru's body. "Anxiety seized my heart, for a moment."
"I miss them."
"Mm-hm." Ulthyr set the vials on the table.
"I need them."
"Your sons?" Ulthyr went and fetched a jug of water. "We may just as easily broadcast a message as receive." The glass clunked on the table. "A communiqué to your family might be arranged."
The bleary-eyed Izuru pushed herself upright. Lank strands clung to her grey cheek. "Um…" A limp finger wavered at the vials.
"Drink." Ulthyr moved the jug to Izuru's lips and held it steady.
"Mmm—" Water dribbled down Izuru's chin.
"Which were you prescribed?"
"The—the anti-dep." Izuru's shaking hand rolled a vial with yellow lozenges away from the vial with pink lozenges.
"How many?" Ulthyr popped the cap.
"Two."
Two lozenges landed in Ulthyr's hand "There."
"Thank you." Izuru tipped the lozenges in to her mouth and took them down with water.
"Better?" Ulthyr rubbed Izuru's shoulder.
"Hmmph, no." Izuru shook her head and peeled her hair away from her face.
"Did you sleep?"
"No." Little cuts lined Izuru's drained lips. "Can you fetch my clothes?"
Izuru ate little at breakfast, barely nibbling on a bland wafer. Her eyes lazed around the floor. "Accompany me to our people's memorial. I must attend it, one last time."
"Of course." Across from Izuru, Ulthyr dipped his chin. "I trust my team to helm Vermora, even for an hour." He caught Izuru's eye and smiled. "Ha-ha." Izuru sucked in her lips and ran a finger down her temple.
A little later, Izuru and Ulthyr faced the Eldar memorial in the human vessel's cargo bay. Cradled in her arms was a cylindrical container. "A Ranger lies here," Izuru whispered. She twisted the lock and released the inner compartment. Cold air, stark white, seeped out, numbing her hands. A single flower, pale blue, sat inside. "Those journeying through Initiation can seek Aletheia on Cair Rhazien, Ulthwé's highest peak. Know that it yields no formal merit, yet it speaks leagues for one's character. I neither picked it, nor nurtured it through infancy." Izuru picked the flower out by the stem and laid it at the foot of the Wraithbone. "The honour, the glory is all yours, First Captain. Uncle." Izuru backed away. Both Eldar bowed their heads in silence.
Just shy the afternoon cycle, Izuru and Ulthyr blinked through an iris portal in to Vermora's fore hangar bay. Purple veins glowed in smooth Wraithbone boughs rearing over the fifteen-metre wingspan of Vermora's Phoenix Interceptor compliment. Twenty-four such fighters occupied individual berths arranged on either side of an eighty-metre, pressurised launch tube running along Vermora's chin.
"A gift, worthy of a wayfarer." Ulthyr brought Izuru behind the primary line of deployment to where a collection of spaceworthy human fighters were berthed. "Let them serve you better than I could."
"May I not rise from the ashes with the Phoenix?"
"A Phoenix requires you think in the mother tongue."
Izuru's eyes fell to the deck. She broke away from Ulthyr's heel and paced alongside the chunky fighters squatting on wide landing skids. "Internal pressurisation and capacity for atmospheric flight. A Gellar Field too."
"My lady…" Ulthyr stretched his arm out and indicated a fighter at the far end of the row. "We are most fortunate to host a Zurvan."
A sleek, teardrop-shaped fighter, all black and very nearly flat, balanced on three curving struts. Its wide wings curved downwards and two sharp fins at the rear stuck upwards. "Not by any human hand was this weapon constructed." Izuru ran a hand along the Zurvan's chin. "Quite the marvel."
Ulthyr's footsteps passed around the far side of the fighter. "And quite the docile creature, you will be pleased to know."
"It would please me, knowing her." Izuru peered in to a black hole in the Zurvan's chin. "Stealth capabilities?"
"I am told her concealed armaments bay and top-mounted engines reduces her auspex cross-section. The air scoops cool exiting exhaust too, which should reduce your IR signature." Ulthyr ducked under the wing and tracked a hand along it.
Izuru tapped a knuckle on the bulge in the Zurvan's belly. "Cargo or payload?"
"Cargo, sleeping, and ablutions are behind the cockpit. That berth is for payload."
"…And, am I going in to the unknown with empty chambers or…?"
"Gun pod in the chin—multi-barrelled type." Ulthyr crossed behind Izuru and pulled a handle beneath the cockpit. A ladder emerged from the fuselage and unfolded. Ulthyr smiled and offered his hand, palm-upward, to Izuru. Izuru brushed it aside and climbed up to the canopy. Ulthyr backed away from the ladder. "Larmino Flight will escort you to—"
"—No escort." Instrument panels surrounded a reclining, leather seat on three sides. "I sally forth alone."
"You know, I never once doubted your integrity, your force of will and the devotion you harbour toward your own. Others may not see it, but I do." Izuru's boots tapped on the rungs. "My only regret was that I was not enough for you, my lady."
Izuru rose on tiptoes before Ulthyr and laid her lips on his cheek. "You have your heading, Captain. I must see to mine."
After a crash-briefing on the Zurvan's flight controls, Izuru lowered herself in to the pilot's seat and slipped her arms through the harness halves. Vermora's deck crew stowed her provisions and what little she possessed in the cargo unit. Bulges travelled along fuel hoses snaking away from the Zurvan's fuselage. A masked, helmeted crewman passed a human pilot's helmet – gloss black – down to Izuru then fastened her harness. Izuru squidged her helmet down on her bun and smacked her fist on the dome.
"Assistance, ma'am?" The crewman offered his hands. Izuru shook her head and fitted her chinstrap. "Heed…" The crewman's gloved hand pointed down at the throttle levers by Izuru's left leg. "She jumps ahead above thirty-five per cent power. Keep it low on the apron before you reach the run-off. I will be guiding you out."
"Apron?"
"A human term—any part of the deck that is not the runway itself." The crewman reached behind Izuru's seat to wide banks of switches and flicked a few. "You may now communicate with Vermora. Your designation is Coldras One."
"Coldras One to Vermora. Comm check."
"Vermora to Coldras One. We are ready to bid thee farewell." The crewman jumped down to the deck. His colleagues detached the fuel lines and hauled them away.
"My gratitude for your hospitality, Vermora. I am proceeding through pre-flight checks now." Izuru's finger hovered over the many switches on the Zurvan's panels. Display – on. A green heads-up display superimposed itself on the canopy. Infrastructure – on. Tank one – full, tank two – full. Izuru turned the manual ignition counter-clockwise. A sharp whine grew to a howl behind and to her left. Engine One – ignition. She brought the starter back to the twelve o'clock position then turned it clockwise. A buzzing shook her right knee. Engine Two – ignition.
Down on the deck, the crewman raised his arms and beckoned Izuru forwards. Izuru eased the lever controlling the Zurvan's repulsors up to the notch marked Lift. The canopy lowered and seated itself in place. Pressurised. A green light glowed on the instrument panel. Little by little, Izuru nudged the throttle open. The crewman, urging her forwards, backed through the shimmering barrier and guided her on to the long straight.
Izuru's noise pointed at the empty launch tunnel. "Vermora, Coldras One. I am ready to depart." She flicked the landing gear switch.
"Coldras One, Vermora. You are cleared to launch. Gods be with you." Safe from the Zurvan's jets, the crewman brought his knuckles together and curled his forefingers, giving the sign of the Void Dragon.
Izuru made the Eye of Ulthwé then gave a thumbs up. The crewman returned it then aimed a finger at the launch tube. "Likewise, Vermora." Izuru opened the throttle and released the Zurvan's brake. Her spine snapped back against the seat. Her trembling hands locked around the throttle and the control stick. Solid grey walls streaked past the Zurvan. Golden light seared Izuru's eyes. She flicked her sun visor down. Shivers seized her heart.